China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

who’d been quite ready to kill him. But a pirate who never gave the members of his gang away. Died under torture. Kept his honor. A true Chinese hero, in his way. A man in a thousand.

What about the British barbarians? The missionary was a good man. But the British were not his people, and they never would be.

So what was left? What was he? With whom was he to live? I am a Hakka, he reminded himself. I belong with them. But for some reason even this didn’t seem enough.

—

One evening, a couple of days after the settlement was agreed, he heard a commotion outside his lodgings near the factories. The summer monsoon had begun, but there was only a light rain falling as he hurried outside, where he found a small crowd of people. Several of them were shouting angrily, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“What’s happened?” he asked an older man.

“It’s the barbarians,” the man explained. “Out in the villages. They’ve raped some women,” he said with disgust.

“That is terrible,” said Nio.

“There is worse,” said the fellow. “They’re attacking the dead.”

“To the cemeteries,” someone cried. “Protect the ancestors.”

And most likely they’d all have gone out there and then if the monsoon had not chosen that moment to burst and the rain to fall so heavily that it made the expedition impossible.

The storm continued for two days. During that time, Nio learned exactly what had happened. A party of British soldiers, a little drunk, had gone for a walk and blundered into one of the many cemeteries in the surrounding countryside. For some reason, they were curious to see how the Chinese were buried. They ripped open a grave. Then another.

Such a thing would have been sacrilege in Britain, too. But in a land where the entire population visited their ancestral graves for the Qingming Ancestors Day after the spring equinox each year—often traveling great distances to do so—it was a horror past all telling.

The local villagers had seen them and intervened with force. Fighting broke out. A village was attacked. Within the hour, the whole area was up in arms, and only the heavy rain had saved the drunken soldiers’ lives.

—

It was the first clear morning after the rain when Nio heard that an army was approaching the city’s northern wall. Along with several hundred others, he went up to see what it meant.

The army—there was no other name by which to call it—was huge, more than ten thousand men. Judging by their dress and the horses they rode, the leaders were mostly members of the local gentry, accompanied by men bearing spears and bows and arrows. These must be the old local militias. But there were also huge crowds of peasants carrying more rudimentary arms—clubs and sickles or no weapons at all.

The army showed its unity in two ways. Throughout its ranks were improvised black flags, whose combined effect was frightening. But more significant to Nio were the banners that every militia contingent seemed to carry. For each banner bore, in bold Chinese characters, the same simple legend: Righteous People.

The countryside had risen. And they declared to the people of Guangzhou that they had come to relieve the city from the barbarians who defiled their ancestors and everything that was holy. Having arrived, they waited, ready to fight, but uncertain what to do.

Some time passed. A fellow about his own age, who’d been standing beside Nio, turned to him and remarked: “We should never have let this happen.”

“What should we have done?”

“Killed the barbarians, of course.”

“They have better weapons,” Nio said.

“I know that. But look at the numbers. All we had to do was let them land, come into the city, make them welcome, then kill them. At night when they’re asleep. A million of us, to a few hundred of them.”

“And their ships?”

“Same thing. Row out to them in the dark. Hundreds of sampans. Swarm on board. It’s all in the numbers.”

Just then, from the northern city gate, four riders appeared. Three were city prefects. The fourth was a British officer. They rode out to the army. Some of the gentry rode to meet them and confer.

“What do you think they’re saying?” asked Nio’s companion.

“I should think the prefects are telling them that the barbarian troops are already starting to leave. A few more days and they and all their ships will be gone. They’re telling them to disperse.”

“Why’s the barbarian officer there?”

“To confirm it’s true, I suppose.”

“Or to make sure our prefects do what they’re told. They’re all traitors.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re on the barbarians’ side then, aren’t you? Another traitor.”

“No.” Nio gazed across at the peasant army with its banners. “I’m just a peasant from a village down the coast.” He paused and nodded, as much to himself as his companion. “I’m one of the Righteous People.”

“I doubt it,” said the other, and moved away.

But I am, thought Nio. He knew it now. That’s what he was. Or at least what he wanted to be—whatever form it might take. One of the Righteous People.

◦

The marriage was set. It was agreed up at the hill station. With the fall of Canton and the payment of the six million dollars, it seemed clear that John Trader’s fortune and the opium trade in general were as secure as such things can ever be. Or perhaps Colonel Lomond was just getting bored by the long engagement. Whatever the reason, the marriage would take place in October.

“As I’ve no family, I’m afraid the guest list will be rather one-sided,” Trader remarked to Mrs. Lomond. Charlie Farley would be his best man, of course. Aunt Harriet and her husband would be coming. Quite a few former colleagues and friends from Rattrays would be on the list. There were a number of people he knew on Macao whom he could invite, though whether any of them would be able to come all the way to Calcutta was another matter. Both the Odstock brothers were